Oscar Traynor

Oscar Traynor (21 March 1886-15 December 1963) was Minister of Defense of Ireland from 8 September 1939 to 18 February 1948, succeeding Frank Aiken and preceding Thomas F. O'Higgins, and again from 13 June 1951 to 2 June 1954, interrupting Sean Mac Eoin's two terms.

Biography
Oscar Traynor was born in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland on 21 March 1886 to a family of Irish nationalists, and he played for Belfast Celtic FC from 1910 to 1912. In 1916, Traynor took part in the Easter Rising, and he served as a brigadier of the Irish Republican Army's Dublin Brigade during the Irish War of Independence; Traynor led his men in an ambush of British Army troops of the West Kent Regiment at Drumchondra on 16 June 1921, the first time that Thompson submachine guns were used in the war against the United Kingdom. During the Irish Civil War, Traynor took the side of the IRA, and he took part in guerrilla warfare in County Dublin and County Wicklow after the Irish army took over Dublin in 1922. In September 1922, he was captured by Irish Free State troops and imprisoned, and he would later become a Fianna Fail politician. From 1939 to 1948 and from 1951 to 1954, he served as Minister of Defense, retiring from politics in 1961. Traynor died on 15 December 1963 at the age of 77.